Illinoispolice departments may not assign ticket quotas and may not evaluate police officers based on how many citations they issue due to a new law in Illinois. Gov. Pat Quinn signed the new legislation on Sunday, according to a Chicago Tribune report on Sunday. The new law takes effect immediately. The law will allow police officers to use their judgment in deciding whether or not to write a ticket for a driver, according to Illinois’ current Democratic governor. The law applies to law enforcement officials at the local, county and state levels.

Quinn said that law enforcement officers should have discretion on when and where to issue traffic citations and be forced to ticket motorists to satisfy a quota system which has been extremely problematic for many Illinois drivers for much too long. The new law will improve safety and working conditions for police officers, says the governor. He says the law will also prevent motorists from facing unnecessary anxiety when they encounter a police vehicle.

With this law, police departments may not assign an officer a specific number of citations he or she must issue in a specific amount of time. Additionally, the law stops agencies in the state from comparing officers to other officers based on the number of citations a policeman writes. The law, which was sponsored by Democrat State Rep. Jay Hoffman from suburban St. Louis, is designed as a way to better deploy officers to do the necessary jobs for society and to improve relations between police officers and the public.

The Fraternal Order of Police has said that quotas have turned police officers into tax collection machines, according to the Sun-Times. Instead, the organization asserts, should be professional law enforcement officers. Illinoisans have long complained that too many unnecessary traffic stops have occurred and tickets have been written extremely freely by police officers, particularly small villages throughout the state. Many citizens consider these practices to be nothing less than a cash cow for locales which are funded by unsuspecting citizens who have been continually assaulted by such practices for much too long.

The bill passed overwhelmingly in both chambers of the General Assembly before being passed on to Quinn for his signature. In the House of Representatives, 106 voted in favor of the bill. Nine voted against it. In the Illinois Senate, 57 voted for the bill and only one voted against it.